Synopses & Reviews
Where is Allegra Coleman? The last person to have seen her is sardonic, reluctant celebrity reporter Clementine James, on her last assignment for
Flame magazine. Clementine's interview with Allegra, a beautiful actress and bona fide star with an Oscar-buzz performance under her belt, turned into an extended road trip on Interstate 5 that ended abruptly in a car accident. Allegra vanished into thin air, fueling a fetishistic fascination with her and inspiring round-the-clock TV coverage, candlelight vigils, and endless speculation.
Meanwhile, Clementine, Allegra's last known contact, finds herself in the spotlight, a newly anointed celebrity by association. While she is recuperating from crash injuries, she is visited by movie stars past Natalie Wood, Loretta Young, and Gloria Swanson, among others who comprise the Greek chorus. The screen legends act as surrogates of sorts, guiding Clementine to greater wisdom about life and success and the brevity of anybody's time in the sun.
Through the actresses, Martha Sherrill examines our society's infatuation with celebrity and its effect on the celebrated. With the savvy that comes from her own extensive experience in profiling the famous, Sherrill dissects the cult of personality, the central preoccupation of our time. The result is a parody and parable of Hollywood that is at once absurdly funny and disturbingly plausible, from a writer destined to become the next new thing.
Review
"[S]urprisingly insightful and intelligent....An experienced showbiz reporter who created a stir with an Esquire story on an imaginary starlet named Allegra Coleman, Sherrill captures the ephemeral splendor of physical beauty, youth and glamour. The ending should not be given away. But Sherrill makes a convincing case that glamour and movies are far more mysterious and powerful than this reader had realized." Deirdre Donahue, USA Today
Review
"It's popcorn parody for the soul, with plenty of butter." Publishers Weekly
Review
"Sherrill has crafted an absorbing, note-perfect examination of Hollywood's culture of stardom, and film aficionados will savor the many cinematic references." Booklist
Synopsis
When "it girl" Allegra Coleman disappears, the result is a parody and parable of Hollywood that is at once absurdly funny and disturbingly plausible, from a writer possibly destined to become the next new thing.
Synopsis
Allegra Coleman is young, beautiful, and destined for stardom. Clementine James is a jaded journalist who has been persuaded to write one last celebrity profile, a piece on Allegra for Flame magazine. But when their road-trip interview ends in a car crash, Allegra vanishes into thin air, and America goes into a frenzy of round-the-clock TV coverage, candlelight vigils, and miraculous sightings.
Clementine becomes a celebrity by proxyand while recovering from her injuries, she receives a series of ghostly visits from Natalie Wood, Clara Bow, Myrna Loy, Loretta Young, Gloria Swanson, and other screen sirens of the past. As Tallulah Bankhead tells her, “Its agony, darling...bitter agonywatching everything slip away. Your looks. Your dough. Your mind. Your ass.” Has the missing Allegra escaped such a fate?
To find out, Martha Sherrill takes Clementine on a riotous, often hilarious journey inside the hideaways of Hollywood stars and the hangouts of Manhattans power editors. Along the way, Sherrill captures the erotic jolt of celebrity and the way it affects the celebrated. My Last Movie Star is both a parody and parable of Hollywood, at once absurdly funny and weirdly plausible.
Synopsis
Includes bibliographical references (p. [347]-349).
About the Author
Martha Sherrill is a former staff writer at The Washington Post and has also written for Esquire, Vanity Fair, and The New York Times Magazine, among other publications. She was raised in Los Angeles and now lives in Maryland with her husband and son.